


picking up the pieces

by fluffysfics



Series: rewriting history [8]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, and talk about their feelings for once, these two idiots finally have a conversation or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: The Master finally has to come clean about everything he’s been hiding from the Doctor for all this time.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: rewriting history [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064198
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	picking up the pieces

The Master wakes up cuffed to a hospital bed. 

_Kinky_ , he thinks, and a mad half-laugh forces its way out of his lips. Then he moans, because everything hurts. _Everything_. 

“Master?” 

The Doctor’s voice would wake him from the deepest coma, he’s pretty sure. His current state of delirium is _nothing_. His eyes snap open, and he flinches at the bright light directly above him, only to writhe in pain, and _keep_ writhing, fevered brain hardly aware of any other way to make it stop. 

“Master- Koschei. Kosch! Stop, stop- please. Stop. Lemme explain.” The Doctor’s hands are suddenly on his shoulders, pushing him down into the bed. Her face is above him- she looks angelic, with the light behind her, and another mad laugh escapes him. He _loves_ her. He’s so unworthy of loving her. 

Slowly, he stills, different parts of his body seeming to get the message at different times. But eventually everything quiets, and the Doctor lets go of his shoulders. 

“You had glass in your left heart,” she explains. “I had to get it out or it was going to do even more damage.” Her voice shakes a little. “My necklace almost killed you...” 

Only the Doctor could ever find a way to blame herself for this. The Master presses his eyes tight shut, and decides to try and attempt speaking, even though his body doesn’t even remotely feel like his own. 

“Thhh...no’- not your- ffff...” No. okay. His tongue isn’t cooperating. Not even slightly. He slumps, miserable, feeling a tear squeeze out of his closed eyelids. 

“Please just rest,” the Doctor says. She sounds exhausted. “I don’t- I don’t know what’s going on here. At all. You owe me so many explanations. But not now. Rest.” 

The Master doesn’t feel much like resting. He feels delirious, and terrified, and utterly certain that the Doctor is going to regret saving his life when he tells her his whole wretched story. He can feel himself shaking, every jolt sending more pain through him. He shakes his head, hears her sigh and rifle through a drawer. 

“Sorry about this,” the Doctor murmurs. There’s the sharp prick of a needle entering the side of his neck, and suddenly everything stills, quiets, melts and blurs away into a foggy, uncertain sleep. 

——

When the Master wakes again, he’s still tied down. Everything hurts a lot less, though, and when he manages to open his eyes, the bright light above him has been turned off. He pulls at his bindings, which makes some alarm start beeping loudly, and a minute later the Doctor rushes into the room. 

She does not look happy. 

“I was just talking to the fam,” she says gravely, switching the alarm back off. “Had to explain what a chameleon arch was, thanks to you. Yaz isn’t takin’ it well.” 

Oh. He’d forgotten about Yaz in all the chaos. 

He’d gotten close to all of the Doctor’s other friends, really, but Yaz had been special to him. And now she was never going to trust him again. The Master deflates against the bed, saying nothing, tears burning in his eyes. 

The Doctor seems a little shocked by that reaction. She walks slowly over to his bedside, pulling up a chair to sit down. For a long minute, she regards him. 

“Look,” she says eventually. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on here. I don’t know how long you were O for. I don’t know why you thought you had to disguise yourself as him. I don’t- is this connected to Gallifrey somehow? Did you know about that? Did- did you _do_ that?” She grips the edge of the bed, leaning over him. For a moment, she looks scared, vulnerable, and then a firmness drops over her expression. “Tell me everything, Master. Do it _now_.” 

And so he does. 

He tells her firstly about his plan to break her. To become the perfect human, lure her in, then ruin her when the stakes were high enough. He tells her about how his resolve had been faltering for months, how he couldn’t do it, how he’d come to love her so much. He tells her about how long he’d spent pretending. The guilt that had filled his guts with lead. The dawning realisation that he wasn’t worthy of life, and O was the one who deserved his place in the universe instead. The one who could make her happiest. 

By the time he is finished, the Master’s face is wet from crying. He wants to curl up and sob, give in the guilt and anguish that is tearing him apart, but he can’t move. The Doctor is just... _watching_ him, sitting by his bedside. His vision is too blurred with tears to look into her eyes, see what she’s feeling, but she has gone _very_ still. 

Then-

“That’s not everything,” she says quietly. Calmly. _Too_ calmly. “I still don’t understand why you’d do any of this. Try again. Tell me _everything_.” 

He really, _really_ doesn’t want to. 

But he does it anyway. 

The Master takes a deep breath. He tells her of stabbing a past self in the back, being shot, _dying_. And then waking, unexpectedly, alone and abandoned in a ship that was on fire. He tells her of making a slow return to Gallifrey to find a TARDIS, tells her of a curious visit to the Matrix chamber while the Time Lords were busy arguing over whether or not to arrest him. 

And then, his voice trembling, he tells her a story. The story of an abandoned child, taken in by a loving mother. The story of how that love had been twisted, perverted, by years of cruel experimentation. He tells her of secrets, and endless lies, and shady organisations, and memory wipes. 

And he tells the Doctor who she is. 

“That’s why I burned them,” he finishes softly. “The people who profited off of your suffering, and hid it from you. From all of us. They all deserved to die in flames. They _hurt_ you.” 

The Doctor makes a small, strangled sound, somewhere between a whimper and a laugh. Then she gets to her feet, and stands over him. Her hands are shaking. There’s an odd look in her eyes, and that scares the Master badly. He knows every expression that has ever crossed her face, but he doesn’t know this one. 

“That’s- I know you. That really _is_ everything, isn’t it?” 

He nods silently. 

“Oh...” 

In a moment of manic humour, it takes everything the Master has not to say _that’s my name_. 

“I’m sorry, Theta,” he tries. “I’m...any bad thing you could say to me, I’ll believe it. I... _deserve_ it. I hurt you just as badly as the Time Lords. I betrayed your trust. I should’ve come clean months ago, but I’m- I’m just a selfish _coward_. And I know that there’s- look at you. Just look at you, with your past. Who you are. You’re so much more than me. How...how could you ever love me after I told you the truth about that?” 

The Doctor stares down at him. She opens her mouth, and closes it, and then shakes her head. 

And then she turns on her heel and sprints out of the room, leaving him alone in the half-dark, still cuffed to a bed. 

——

The Master waits. One hour passes, then two. He starts trying to escape his bonds, but they’re ridiculously hard to break. And he’s pretty sure that the TARDIS keeps making adjustments every time he thinks of a new way to wriggle out. 

“You made me do this,” he scowls up at the ceiling. “The last part, at least. You wanted me to be O. And then you didn’t stop me from making it all fall apart. _Why_? What game are you playing here?” 

The TARDIS just hums, and quietly projects an image into his mind. The Doctor. Pacing up and down frantically, even bouncing off of the walls of the room she’s in. She’s talking _constantly_ , a non-stop stream of words that appear to be addressed to the air more than anything else. Arguing with herself. About _him_. He shouldn’t listen. But he does, just for a minute. 

“...he’s right, I am more than him. Technically. But I didn’t ask to be. And I’m- am I even that? I’m not. I’m not more than him _emotionally_. I’m a selfish idiot too. But what he did- the whole _planet_. Kids, probably. Animals. Innocents. I was prepared to do the same, once. But I didn’t actually do it, did I? And he did. He did, and there wasn’t even a war on, he was just jealous. No- not jealous. He was just angry. Betrayed. On my behalf. I didn’t even get a say in it. So why- _why_ do I want to forgive him?” She slams both of her fists into a wall, and the image cuts off abruptly. 

_She’s been doing this for six hours_ , the TARDIS informs him. _Time is passing differently for her_. 

“I want to tell her I’m sorry,” the Master says weakly. As if _sorry_ could make up for any of it. For ever leaving the Doctor’s side as Missy. For poking his nose in where it didn’t belong. For destroying their planet. For lying to her, intending to hurt her, and then changing his mind and being a coward and hurting her even _more_. “Please. Can I tell her that?” 

_You’ve done enough_. 

——

“You’re right.” 

The Master jolts awake from the uneasy half-sleep he’s been languishing in for several hours. The bright light is back, and the Doctor looks a mess. There are tear tracks on her face- her coat is missing, her suspenders are half-off, and her knuckles are bruised. Guilt twists his stomach into even further knots. 

“What?” 

“You’re right,” the Doctor snaps. “You _are_ a selfish coward. I know you get angry. I _know_. But you should have _told_ me. You should have told me before you destroyed our home.” She lets out a sob, and the sound goes straight through his hearts. “I deserved a choice! And I might- I might have _helped_ you! I woulda helped you find everyone old enough to know the secret. And I would have made them pay.” She clenches her fists at her sides. “I hate what you did. I hate it. But I can’t- something in me can’t fully blame you. I _know_ you. I’ve always known you. And I know why you did it. I- if it was me, learning about you, I might’ve... I might have done the same.” 

She’s off again, pacing around the room, her shoulder glancing off the walls every so often. She just goes with it, ricocheting in whichever direction her feet lead her. 

“I’m so-“

“Stop. Don’t say you’re sorry, Master. Don’t. I know. I _know_ you are. Because my ship has been telling me for _hours_.” She glares up at the ceiling. “She should have told me about O way, way sooner. But she seems to think that everything she did with you was- was some way of punishing you, or somethin’. Making you understand your actions. So tell me. Did it work?” 

The Master blinks at her. “I- everything just _hurts_ ,” he admits quietly. “I want it all to stop. I hurt you, and I hurt you again, and, and- and even when I really thought I was doing something to make you happy, it just hurt you more. I’m so tired of hurting you, Theta. I love you. And I just- I regret so much. I’m...I really am so, so _sorry_.” 

He closes his eyes, listens to the Doctor pacing the room. Slowly, slowly, her footsteps come to a stop by his bedside. 

The Master doesn’t dare open his eyes. He feels wretched, and if he sees more hurt on her face, he is sure that it will break him beyond repair. He’s crying again, but he’s already such a mess that he hardly notices. 

Warm, shaky fingers slide around his wrist, unlocking the cuff that’s been keeping him down. The other one is released a moment later, then his ankles, then the strap over his chest. 

“Sit up, Koschei,” he hears the Doctor say. 

The Master sits up, doesn’t even think about disobeying, and slowly opens his eyes. 

“You’ve done awful things,” she says, levelly. “Really, really awful. A lot of them, you meant to do. Some of them, you didn’t. And it’s- Koschei, it’s _you_. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of second chances for you. I’ll forgive you eventually. But it’s gonna take time.” The Doctor lets out a shaky sigh. “But you didn’t just do awful things to me. You’ve done them to yourself, as well. And I- look. I’m not stupid. I hurt you, as our last selves. The Vault was _wrong_. And I look at you now, and I see... _consequences_. Consequences of what we both did.” 

She shifts, and ever so slowly moves to sit down on the edge of the bed. Her leg is pressing against his. The Doctor buries her face in her hands, rubbing at her eyes. The Master hardly even dares to breathe. 

“I’m so tired of consequences, Kosch. I just want things to get better. I want you back. Not O. You. You’re my best friend. You’re my...more than that. You get me. Better than anyone, and that’s- that’s partially my own fault. I haven’t treated my friends right at all this go, and I’ll work on that, but-“ She shoves her hands in her lap, staring determinedly at them. “I want to work on that with you by my side. I want...both of us to get better. Together. So, I- can we do that? Please? Promise each other that we...we get a fresh start, and we work on everything together?” 

The Doctor lifts one hand out of her lap, offering it to him. Her face is filled with tiredness, and trepidation, and _hope_. 

The Master stares at her hand. He remembers other pleas to take it, other pleas to stand with her, across so many lifetimes. All ignored, or sneered at, or brushed aside. 

He’s so tired of fighting. He wants to _love_. 

Reaching out, he takes her hand in his own, and holds it tight. 

“Together,” he promises her. 

**Author's Note:**

> I told you it wouldn’t be painful forever!! I think there’s going to be at least one more fic in this series, but that hasn’t been written yet, so keep an eye out for it ~sometime~!
> 
> thank you so much for comments, I love reading them, it really is great to know that people are so invested in this series because I love it too <3


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